Read Online Songs Of Blood And Sword: A Daughter'S Memoir by Fatima Bhutto - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Fatima Bhutto
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even-keeled, he never got angry but I think he carried it with him, as a burdenmaybe. I think he felt a certain responsibility, he was part of something larger.’ 8 Peter remembers Murtaza fasting during the month of Ramadan. Peter was from a blue-collar background in Buffalo, New York. He hadn’t come across many Muslims before. ‘But how can you not drink water all day?’ he would ask his roommate incredulously, and remembers Mir saying, in a Pakistani accent – which he imitated for me when we met at his Phoenix office – ‘You just have to do it, man.’ Peter also remembers Bill’s frustration that he just couldn’t get Murtaza to fully embrace the joys of country music.
‘Mir was completely comfortable anywhere,’ remembered Magda, a comparative literature major who was a part of Murtaza’s circle of friends, all formed during his first year at college. Magda looks like a brunette Kathleen Turner, she has a husky voice and she wears a string of pearls that bounces on her chest with every beat of her laughter. Magda is part Cuban, part Basque, and she dated one of Mir’s later roommates. They would go dancing. ‘It’s in my blood, I’m Cuban, I can move,’ Magda told me. ‘But your father . . .’ She stood up and imitated him, a notoriously enthusiastic but bad dancer, standing perfectly upright with his hands at breast level flaying this way and that with a robotic kind of rhythm, all the while bobbing his head to the beat of the song. ‘We called it the Mir dance,’ Magda explained. Magda cried several times as we spoke. ‘Your father was one of the kindest people I ever knew,’ she told me. ‘He had an enormous heart.’ 9
All of Papa’s college friends had been rocked by his assassination and they all reacted to meeting me by examining me for signs of my father – you look like him, you’re shorter than he was (how did that happen?), your hands are the same – and then, when comfortable, by peppering me with questions, trying to understand how the Mir they knew had been killed. Before each interview, each visit, I coached myself not to get too emotional and break down in front of the people I was so nervous about meeting. But I didn’t cry, not really, I was too amazed and taken aback by this world I had discovered to allow my sadness to take over. My universe expanded exponentially, as did my knowledge of my father, all in a matter of weeks. I was elated that Ihad discovered an important part of my father’s past. But I also felt upset, angry that these people, Papa’s alternate American family, had been kept from me and my family when it became clear that everyone I interviewed knew my aunts, both Benazir and Sanam. Or rather, my aunts knew them. They had kept in touch with Murtaza’s friends, especially the important ones, over the years, had their phone numbers and email addresses, exchanged condolences and Christmas cards, details of their children and their spouses. And here I was, playing amateur private investigator, running from pillar to post with only shadows to chase and footprints highlighted by kind strangers to follow. I tried not to dwell on the unfairness, on being kept in the dark; I had found everyone I needed to, no matter how. Milbry, whose warm laugh and hugs saw me through my first day of the journey back in time, gives me feedback on my articles and career advice now; I’m on Bill’s email list of supporters as he campaigns to be governor of Texas; and Magda – who my journey ended with – emails me comforting thoughts when the news in my country is depressing and we speak of meeting again soon so she can show my mother the Mir dance.
At Harvard Murtaza studied government – he was a major in the politics department – but branched out and took classes on sociology, environmental science – a class called ‘future of the earth’ was his favourite – and history, mainly focusing on Russian and Soviet politics. Robert Paarlberg was a teaching fellow
‘Mir was completely comfortable anywhere,’ remembered Magda, a comparative literature major who was a part of Murtaza’s circle of friends, all formed during his first year at college. Magda looks like a brunette Kathleen Turner, she has a husky voice and she wears a string of pearls that bounces on her chest with every beat of her laughter. Magda is part Cuban, part Basque, and she dated one of Mir’s later roommates. They would go dancing. ‘It’s in my blood, I’m Cuban, I can move,’ Magda told me. ‘But your father . . .’ She stood up and imitated him, a notoriously enthusiastic but bad dancer, standing perfectly upright with his hands at breast level flaying this way and that with a robotic kind of rhythm, all the while bobbing his head to the beat of the song. ‘We called it the Mir dance,’ Magda explained. Magda cried several times as we spoke. ‘Your father was one of the kindest people I ever knew,’ she told me. ‘He had an enormous heart.’ 9
All of Papa’s college friends had been rocked by his assassination and they all reacted to meeting me by examining me for signs of my father – you look like him, you’re shorter than he was (how did that happen?), your hands are the same – and then, when comfortable, by peppering me with questions, trying to understand how the Mir they knew had been killed. Before each interview, each visit, I coached myself not to get too emotional and break down in front of the people I was so nervous about meeting. But I didn’t cry, not really, I was too amazed and taken aback by this world I had discovered to allow my sadness to take over. My universe expanded exponentially, as did my knowledge of my father, all in a matter of weeks. I was elated that Ihad discovered an important part of my father’s past. But I also felt upset, angry that these people, Papa’s alternate American family, had been kept from me and my family when it became clear that everyone I interviewed knew my aunts, both Benazir and Sanam. Or rather, my aunts knew them. They had kept in touch with Murtaza’s friends, especially the important ones, over the years, had their phone numbers and email addresses, exchanged condolences and Christmas cards, details of their children and their spouses. And here I was, playing amateur private investigator, running from pillar to post with only shadows to chase and footprints highlighted by kind strangers to follow. I tried not to dwell on the unfairness, on being kept in the dark; I had found everyone I needed to, no matter how. Milbry, whose warm laugh and hugs saw me through my first day of the journey back in time, gives me feedback on my articles and career advice now; I’m on Bill’s email list of supporters as he campaigns to be governor of Texas; and Magda – who my journey ended with – emails me comforting thoughts when the news in my country is depressing and we speak of meeting again soon so she can show my mother the Mir dance.
At Harvard Murtaza studied government – he was a major in the politics department – but branched out and took classes on sociology, environmental science – a class called ‘future of the earth’ was his favourite – and history, mainly focusing on Russian and Soviet politics. Robert Paarlberg was a teaching fellow
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